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THE DEAD POETS SOCIETY

FILM BY PETER WEIR-SCRIPT BY TOM SCHULMAN-NOVEL BY N.H.KLEINBAUM

The script of the film can be found at simplyscripts.

There are several sites devoted to the film "Dead Poets Society"; one of them is: http://www10.pair.com/~crazydv/weir/dps

THE DEAD POETS SOCIETY - PRE-VIEWING TASKS

The students listen to music ( the students shouldn't be told yet that it is film music, in this particular case THE DEAD POETS SOCIETY, original soundtracks composed and conducted by Maurice Jarre, CD CH 558, Milan, 4 original tracks : 1. Carpe Diem, 2. Neal, 3. To the cave, 4. Keating's triumph; there is an additional track, called Football training, which is in fact Beethoven's 9th Symphony 4th movement)

HAND-OUT
Listen to the music (choose one track):
1. Write 2 or 3 adjectives to describe the music.
2. If the music were the theme for a film, what would the film be about?
3. Where would the action take place (be specific : in which country, where more precisely, in a city, a village, in the country, in a house, in a room, ...)
4. What would the main character(s) be like?
5. What would happen in that film? Is it a dramatic or a happy event, is it sad, is there action, ...
6. How would it end?
7. What would be the title?
8. What famous actors would play in it?
If the students like this activity, it can be repeated with the three other tracks of this particular film, but track n° 3 will be used in a later activity.

If you decide to play more than one track they might be asked to complete a chart like the following:

Alternatively, the students may be asked to do some Stream of Consciousness writing (1) :
they listen to the music and they have to write down what comes to their minds as they listen; they should begin writing as soon as the music starts and should not stop while the music is playing. They have been warned beforehand that spelling and grammar mistakes are not important, what counts is a large amount of writing. At the end of the activity they exchange the papers and comment on the quality of the images, ideas or descriptions; they should then be encouraged to work in groups and edit their writing and correct their mistakes.

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(1) See Tim Murphy, Music and song, Resource Books for Teachers, Oxford University Press.

© Janssens Daniel

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